Sedentary lifestyles ‘linked to increased heart failure in men’

The dangers of a sedentary lifestyle have been emphasised by new research linking prolonged periods of sitting to an increased heart failure risk.

Published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, the study assessed a racially diverse group of 84,170 men aged 45 to 69 without heart failure over an eight-year period. Men with low levels of physical activity were 52 percent more likely to develop heart failure than the most active men.

Moreover, outside of work, males who spent five or more hours a day sitting were 34 percent more likely to develop heart failure than men who spent no more than two hours a day sitting, regardless of how much exercise they undertook.

The results of the study suggest those who wish to avoid this trend will need to take a dual-pronged approach to tackling it.

Lead researcher Dr Deborah Rohm Young, a senior scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, said: "Be more active and sit less. That's the message here."

This comes after a report from Cornell University earlier this month that assessed data from around 93,000 postmenopausal women demonstrated a similar link between sitting and increased mortality risk among females.